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Monday, June 13, 2011

Transformers Animated Tech Specs!

As you probably already know from the flurry of posts recently I was pretty excited about Botcon this year mostly due to the fact that the exclusives were themed from the Transformers: Animated show. So imagine my surprise upon arrival in Pasadena at the two exclusive lithographs this year: Animated Tech Specs in the G1 style! Naturally one for Autobots and the other for Decepticons.

Usually the annual Lithographs don't excite me very much, but this was completely different. The team at Fun Publications (who runs Botcon) had partnered with Art Director Derrick J. Wyatt and Writer/Story Editor Marty Isenberg for the Transformers: Animated Television Show to expand the Animated Universe even further. What is great about these sets is they include all of the Animated Tech Specs that had been shown in the Transformers Collector's Club Magazine in prior years. I had been upset when these specs were produced exclusively in the Magazine and had resolved myself to eventually scan the pages and reprint them for myself. Now, I don't have to!

Additionally, we get a lot of new characters, including techs for all the Animated figures exclusive to this year's convention. Not only that, but the creators opened up a whole new can of worms with four of the 'Con' specs: Shattered Glass Animated. I believe this was done because two of the exclusive toys this year were from the 'regular' Shattered Glass Universe: Galvatron and Thundercracker. However we now have specs for Shattered Glass Optimus Prime (complete with goatee), Bumblebee, Sumdac and Sari. This provides a jumping-off point for future Animated storylines and gives us a whole new universe to consider. I fully expect some intrepid customizer to provide us with real-life examples of these characters sometime in the near future.

As you can see, I cut my lithographs up into the individual techs so I can place them in my tech spec books right behind the Beast Wars. I certainly hope that FunPub continues to produce these in the future as I really like seeing the old G1 style with new characters as well as the expansion of the Animated Universe.

I don't think Fun Publications would take very kindly to me scanning or posting hiqh quality pics since the IP belongs to them. Have you considered purchasing the sheets and then having someone in the US cut them up and ship to you? Might be a bit cheaper that way.